


The Face of War

by Kaggath



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: SWTOR, Training, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 15:50:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14572362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaggath/pseuds/Kaggath
Summary: "I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er"





	The Face of War

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by art: The Face of War, 1940-Salvador Dali

War, unending tides of blood…a means without an end…carving scars into land and men. Ever since Alderaan, though she hated it, Eleena plunged herself into the bottomlessness of war. Republic beings she knew not the name of fell to her twin blasters, needle-toothed shyracks in the infinite blackness of battle. 

Trained by Darth Malgus himself, though she didn’t have the Force, Eleena held her own, relying on her wits and absolute determination to not fail. While other combatants wailed and barreled into danger Eleena fringed the unnoticed outskirts. Usually.

Eleena heard Malgus on the frontline, spearheading the attack, but she couldn’t see him. His Force-augmented screams carried across the battlefield like death itself. Eleena learned to find some twisted comfort in the sound; it meant Malgus was still alive. Without line of sight to provide direct support, the best she could do at the moment was find the most tactically sound way to advance.

The Republic depot writhed with the dead and dying. Black robes boiled and seethed while white armor twisted and cracked in ways a body shouldn’t bend. Eleena refused to acknowledge either, refused to join either. Refused to become either. Her only objective: find Malgus. Another exploding scream fractured the air. Eleena ducked behind cover, changing her trajectory in the fight.

Behind the unfamiliar architecture of the Republic, a human man--fallen but not dead--gurgled, staining his lips. Staining the land that likely belonged to his home planet. Eleena extinguished him with a single, efficient bolt. Was it mercy? Self-preservation? 

His eyes were embering amber. Were.

Eleena wished those eyes were closed. It was easier to make herself believe she didn’t care when their eyes were closed. 

A Republic soldier shouldn’t be alive in that position. Whether the being that returned for him happened to be a Sith coming to finish the job, or another member of the Republic returning to lend support, Eleena couldn’t be there when the amber-eyed man was found. Peeking around the corner she disposed of two of his comrades several meters away, stealing into their cover. 

Screaming continued. The clashing of blaster bolts and lightsabers and bodies roared. The world they invaded bled but Eleena could not let her heart ache for it. She already lost too much time. Observing the fatal numbers and formations and uniforms, tracking the tempo Eleena tried to find her place in it all. Gaining from the right, she didn’t hear the incoming attack until it was too late. 

 

 

Eleena’s lungs ached. Everything ached. Physical training brought a pain new to her, and she savored the hot anger in her muscles. Anger, pain…all the same, but this new pain brought strength in some form. Strength was not something she was used to. 

“Again,” Malgus demanded. Eleena, of course, obeyed. 

Shoulders heaving with every gasp, Eleena took her stance. She could feel herself slowing with exhaustion, but that wouldn’t inspire pity in her opponent, and it surely wouldn’t inspire pity in Malgus. Over two meters tall, Malgus was a beast. For all their exertion he wasn’t even winded. 

Advancing like an entire dreadnought, the angle of his attack caught Eleena off guard. They hadn’t drilled this one yet. She had to be able to defend against the unexpected. 

No time for confusion, only action. Eleena dipped low trying to evade the augmented attack, but Malgus caught her under the arm. She knew this grapple. Following the inertia she twisted her body, only to be caught into a new hold. Malgus had one thick arm wrapped around her neck, pinning one of her lekku painfully in the grip. With his other hand he held everything in place, and she was stuck. She could feel if he used the full force of the hold it would clamp her airway shut. By the pure brute force of his strength, Malgus could likely relieve a being of their head with this hold.

Eleena’s body remembered pain very well. Pain, and fear. With every combat lesson and blaster bolt shot she chipped away at her freeze response. She knew with her new life she would never be free of fear, but by learning to fight, to protect her new master’s assets, she may be able to prevent some pain. 

Slithering a hand up to his face Eleena nocked a finger into his septum, forcing his head back. This opened his ribs to her open-palmed blow. Not one for theatrics, Malgus took a single step away to show she had succeeded in breaking the hold. He didn’t waste a second plunging into instruction.

“Use your thumb,” he said, taking her hand to trace a calloused finger over the shallow dip in her knuckle. “You’ll lose a finger if it hangs over.” Eleena nodded. They ran the new drill again and again until her muscles remembered better than her mind ever could, every movement seared into her very cells.

By the end of their session, Eleena could feel her knees trying to collapse. Gritting her teeth against the inevitable failure in her muscles, she struggled to posture deceit. Hiding exhaustion and pain was not a new concept. Failing a Sith was.

Following behind Malgus she almost made it. Planetside and within his walls, no other being saw her misstep. Sluggish toe catching under her, Eleena felt herself falling. Frozen needles embedded themselves in her gut, but instead of collapsing to the floor as she expected…a disarmingly gentle hand cradled her elbow, supporting her. 

The constant hardness in his eyes didn’t disappear, but in the privacy of his chambers Eleena saw the faintest glimmer of…something else. Something she couldn’t identify.

 

 

The blast should have killed her. Opening her eyes, Eleena saw the air and debris warping, shimmering in ways she couldn’t comprehend. Standing between her and the roiling shrapnel, a black figure, a red wound in the air itself hummed, yellow eyes with the smallest light of softness only she could see. 

Veradun.


End file.
